Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday April 21, 2011 @01:29PM
from the because-you-can dept.

kkleiner writes "In his continuing obsession with all things Lego, robotic, and awesome, Chris Shepherd recently constructed the Lego Quad Delta Robot System, a full working model of an industrial robotics line in a factory. The Lego Quad Delta Robot System has four flexing arms that can move in three dimensions, each equipped with a pneumatically driven gripper. Those arms pick up blocks moving on two conveyor belts marked with special light sensors that detect the block's position and color. The system can move 48 of these blocks per minute. Oh, and the whole darn thing, including the impressive support frame, is made out of Lego!"

definitely neat. what I found most interesting is that he programmed the color sensors in fixed locations. each arm always goes to the exact same physical spot for a block pick up, it then moves tot a different bin based on color, goes to the reset spot and picks up the next block that enters it's pickup spot.

Since each arm only picks up blocks in a certain location you would have gaps on density of blocks. However 4 arms provides something like 80% pick up ability so all he needs is a 5th arm so he never

Even the base Lego NXT kit comes with color sensors for sorting things by color. Don't get me wrong, it's very cool. Just not a new thing or what the summary makes it out to be. Although that doesn't exactly seem unusual...

Of course it's overly complicated, it's made from Legos. Engineering students build a tiny bridge out of pasta; that's too small for what it does. Point is it shows understanding of concepts and ingenuity in using materials and conditions which are less than ideal. I'm very impressed.

Someone talented enough to build such a thing from LEGO(R) bricks is certainly talented enough to use real materials. Anyone who limits himself to LEGO(R) bricks is merely limiting his ideas to what a multinational corporation deems acceptable. What the hell kind of nonconformist does that?

PS never call them "legos". LEGO is a registered trademark, and LEGO(R) bricks are the components that the LEGO company produces. If you're going to conform, then bow to your corporate masters like Obama bowing to H

Anyone who limits himself to LEGO(R) bricks is merely limiting his ideas to what a multinational corporation deems acceptable.

You're kidding, right? He didn't limit himself because LEGO sent thugs and told him it was the only thing he could use. He limited it to those for an interesting intellectual challenge (and perhaps, a better chance of getting Slashdotted).

Just because it's made from Legos doesn't mean it has to be complicated. What it shows is that the builder likes making something more complex than it needs to be.
In the real world, in a real factory, fewer moving parts, smaller space requirements, and higher efficiency will win out over a monstrosity like this.

You see overcomplicated. I see multipurpose. Sure you could build a high-speed color sorter that is much smaller and more efficient, but this guy built something that could be used for a lot more than sorting colored blocks. As a proof of concept and early prototype, it's quite good.

Just because it's made from Legos doesn't mean it has to be complicated. What it shows is that the builder likes making something more complex than it needs to be.
In the real world, in a real factory, fewer moving parts, smaller space requirements, and higher efficiency will win out over a monstrosity like this.

Just because it's made from random crap doesn't mean it has to be complicated. What it shows is that the builder likes making something more complex than it needs to be.
In the real world, in a real warehouse, fewer moving parts, smaller space requirements, and one man simply pushing Buster off the rocking chair by hand will win out over a monstrosity like this.

PS. ever think maybe he built it for FUN and not for EFFICIENCY? It is a color-sorting lego robot, you

I'm awfully sick of hearing people talk about smart technicians this way. I guess playing basketball and having lots of sex is the meaningful way to live your life. Incidentally, have you ever seen the beginning of the movie Idiocracy?

This is cool, but clearly what needs to be done is to build a lego replicator. Surely it's possible to build a factory out of lego that can build a wide variety of lego objects, including a copy of itself.

Then you just feed it a bunch of parts, wait for the exponential growth to kick in, and then you can cloudsource assembly of many lego models. You could sell the (the models or the factories) for a little over the cost of the constituent legos + electricity and still make money.

I also remember reading about another project I cannot find that actually DID achieve the ability to manufacture all the parts but the electronics from the original machine. It could only make things with limited materials though.

I have a MakerBot (a repstrap machine), so I'm familiar with the philosophy. Unfortunately you can only make about half the $$$ value of the machine with another machine right now. (And in fact it's much cheaper to buy molded versions of the printable parts).

I'd be interested in hearing more about your replicator if you happen to find the reference. I have vague notions that I heard of a CNC & chip fab lab designed at MIT to be self-contained and manufacture a wide variety of thi

What I've always wanted is a machine that you dump all your legos into and it sorts them by color, not just special blocks but any lego piece. Another sort that would be very useful is by type: short beams, long beams, small panels, big panels, wheels, axles, gears, technic beams, etc...

Ok people, the reason this is cool is because he replicated a specific type of factory robot called a 'pick and place delta robot', not because he couldn't think of any other way to sort the blocks. This type of robot is the fastest way to sort and place objects that are coming down a conveyor belt at random intervals and placements.

The fact that the submitter made it sound like you were going to be watching a manufacturing robot does not make this less impressive.